Scanning to USB Flash Drive does not create a PDF file

[QA-Man]

Hi all,

I am an intermediate to advanced computer user and am unable to get my new HP Photosmart 7520 Series to save scanned PDFs to my USB Flash Drive. I have a 64 GB flash drive formatted as ExFAT.

Yes, the software is up-to-date on my printer.

1. Insert USB Flash drive.

2. Click Scan and select PDF.

3. Preview the image on the touchscreen.

4. If it looks good, click scan.

5. Click Done and the printer states the file is successfully saved.

I know there are no PDFs on the flash drive. I confirmed this by opening the flash drive in Terminal and nothing listed:

MacBook-Pro-2:FatBoy owner$ ls -lasrt

ls: .HPIMAGE.VFS: No such file or directory

ls: DCIM: No such file or directory

total 1280

256 drwxrwxrwx  1 owner  staff  131072 Jan  1  1980 .

256 -rwxrwxrwx  1 owner  staff    4096 Mar  3 21:27 ._.Trashes

256 drwxrwxrwx@ 1 owner  staff  131072 Mar  3 21:27 .Trashes

256 drwxrwxrwx  1 owner  staff  131072 Mar  3 21:27 .fseventsd

256 drwxrwxrwx  1 owner  staff  131072 Mar  3 21:27 .Spotlight-V100

  0 drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root    admin     204 Mar  3 21:32 ..

MacBook-Pro-2:FatBoy owner$ pwd

/Volumes/FatBoy

MacBook-Pro-2:FatBoy owner$ df -h

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused    ifree %iused  Mounted on

/dev/disk2s1    64Gi  1.3Gi   62Gi     3%    10491   509864    2%   /Volumes/FatBoy

What's going on here? I changed a few things in the output for privacy. FatBoy is the 64 GB USB Flash Drive.

There are no special read or write permissions on this drive that I am aware of as I just formatted it. Do the HP Printers only see FAT 32 file systems? I also tried MAC OS Extended (Journaled) without any luck.

Excuse any unusual omissions, the HP editor interpreted it as "invalid HTML".

[Gemini02]

Hi QA-Man,

Welcome to the HP Forums, I hope you enjoy your experience!

I understand you can't save the scan to the USB drive.

I will be happy to help you.

Mac and Windows support the ExFat format so that shouldn't be a problem.

Save the scan as a JPEG to see what happens.

Try another USB drive to make sure it isn't a hardware issue with the printer.

You could try saving a scan to the computer and then saving it to the drive to see if you have the same results.

Please let me know the results.

Thank you for posting on the HP Forums.
Have a nice day!

[vikrantislav]

I am having the same problem. I have tested on 3 different USB drives and cannot save scans to an ExFat formatted USB drive.  I tried saving as PDF and jpeg.

The printer can read the USB stick as it shows previews of the existing photos on it and offers to print them.

After scanning it says save was successful. But when putting the drive in my Mac no new scans are there.

Please see the terminal output below. I find it interesting.

$ ls
HPSCANS            campusphotos
$ ls -l
ls: .HPIMAGE.VFS: No such file or directory
ls: HPSCANS: No such file or directory
total 64
drwxrwxrwx  1 yusernm  staff  32768 Feb 25  2013 campusphotos
$ cd HPSCANS
-bash: cd: HPSCANS: No such file or directory

Thanks.

UPDATE:

I just want to add a few details. I'm using an Officejet Pro 8600. I tried putting the USB drive in Windows7 and it can read the HPSCANS folder and it's contents just fine. So it seems the issue is  specific to OSX (Mavericks).

[Gemini02]

Hi vikrantislav,

Sometimes a simple restart can resolve issues.

There can be compatibility issues when attempting to read a PC formatted thumb drive in a Mac, and a Mac formatted thumb drive in a PC. If the Thumb drive is working in one computer, but not the other it's likely it's been formatted using NTFS and cannot be read on the Mac or formatted in HFS and cannot be read on the PC. In order to get both systems to read the drive I would suggest then to format it as FAT32. After saving your data.

Windows users - Format drive:

1. Open My Computer.
2. Right-click on the USB thumb drive icon.
3. Click Format.
4. In the Format Window select the format of either FAT or FAT32 and click OK.

Mac users - Format drive:

1. In the Disk Utility section for your drive, format the drive as MS-DOS.

Thank You.

[vikrantislav]

The drive is formatted as ExFat, as the original post mentions. It seems the problem may lie in OSX, since Windows7 can read the scans folder, but Mavericks cannot. Or perhaps, the HP scanner implements a Microsoft specific version of ExFat.

[Gemini02]

Hi vikrantislav,

Try formatting the drive to FAT32, after keeping a copy of the files on the Windows computer, to see if the Mac can read it, or use another drive and format it to FAT32 to see if you have the same results.

Let me know the outcome.

Have a nice day!
Thank You.

[QA-Man]

I will try the above suggestion for formatting. I have used another USB drive without luck.

[vikrantislav]

It works fine with the USB drive formatted as FAT32.

[ITFreak]

Yes you are correct HP Printers use old technology components and firmware, I have the latest 2016 HP Laser Printer that also can only read low capacity FAT32 format flash drives, Does not Read ExFat or NTFS formats at all.

I already sold two of my latest HP Printers due to this as well as the fact that Clone Toners have been blocked by HP, getting EPSON or Brother Printes now as clone toners seem to work as do other inks on their inkjet prinetrs as well as scans to 64GB flash drive formated ExFat

HP Price in SA for a 3000 page toner is R2350.00 and I another Printer that Prints the same quality prints 2600 pages sometimes even more for R450.00 and it is not a refill just a clone toner cartridge in packed exactly like the original in a sealed box. 

I also have always bought Canon printers but believe they are now also no longer working with clone ink.

Unless these printer manufacturers correct their 500% markups on there toners hopefully no sane person will buy them anymore.